It seemed inevitable that the Lenovo ThinkPad X60 line would include the elusive tablet capabilities, but for many tablet buffs it's been a long wait. I've seen the entire ThinkPad line move through two generations of Intel processorsexcept for the ThinkPad tablet. More than a year has gone by since the ThinkPad X41 Tablet earned the Editors' Choice award, but now Lenovo is finally ready to take command of the tablet space once again. The Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet ($2,299 direct) gets the desperately needed updates, including an Intel Core Duo processor, integrated EV-DO from Verizon, and new screen options. With that, Lenovo easily retains the Editors' Choice for tablets.

Except for a small EV-DO antenna on the X60, you'll be hard pressed to find any aesthetic differences between the X41 tablet and the X60 tablet. ThinkPads are known for their durability, and the X60 tablet's magnesium alloy frame keeps that legacy alive. At 4.4 pounds, however, the X60 is slightly heavier than the 3.8-pound X41. That's because the X60 comes standard with a 65-Wh battery (9-cell), while the X41 came with a 4-cell. The X60's keyboard and TrackPoint (Lenovo's own pointing stick) are two of the best in the industry; the keyboard offers a significantly better typing experience than both the Toshiba Portégé M400-S4032 and the Fujitsu Lifebook T4210.

Due to popular demand, Lenovo now offers three screen options. I looked at two of the new ones: an SXGA+ (1,400-by-1,050) display, and a polarizing outdoor display that reduces reflection by filtering out bright light as it hits the screen. The third option is an XGA (1,024-by-768) display. I was a little worried that the font sizes might be too small on a 12-inch screen, but reading with Zinio Reader and browsing the Web did not induce eyestrain. There's also less scrolling involved with a higher resolution screen. The outdoor screen works great, though still difficult to look at when hit by direct sunlight).

As a convertible tablet, the X60 tablet gives you the ability to rotate the screen 180 degrees and write on it as you would a paper notebook. You get a newly designed digitizer pen, which has a better feel compared with the previous one. The middle of the pen is lined with a rubbery film that provides a better grip, and you can find a digital eraser on the other end that actually looks like an eraser. Besides protecting the hard drive, the accelerometer governs another feature: Physically tilting the tablet from portrait to landscape mode will automatically change the screen's orientation. Best of all, tablet-specific applications are getting better by the day. Doodling with Alias Sketchbook 1.1 (a bundled 30-day trial version) or note taking with Evernote 1.5 (a free download) and Microsoft's OneNote 2003 are great experience with the X60 tablet on your lap.

As with the ThinkPad X60s, the antenna bump on top of the screen allows you to gain access to Verizon's or Sprint's EV-DO networks. As expected, throughput speeds were in the range of 750 to 800 Kbps in Manhattan, New York. The X60 tablet and the Portégé M400-S4032 are currently the only mainstream tablets that have built-in cellular modems. Panasonic has it too, in the Toughbook CF-19, but it plays in the rugged space. The X60 tablet also has a draft-n (802.11n) wireless card built-in. In addition to backwards compatibility with 802.11g, the draft-n has real-world throughput speeds of up to 130Mbps. You will, however, have to buy a compatible router in order to take advantage of the speed bump. Lenovo does not plan to sell draft-n routers on its site at the time of launch. I like the fact that all your wireless connectionsWi-Fi, draft-n, LAN, and EV-DOcan be managed via Lenovo's Access Connections. And a hardware switch on the front bezel shuts off all your wireless.

The system still doesn't have a built-in optical drive. Rather, Lenovo chose to go with a bigger battery (hence more weight) and relegated the optical drive to an Ultrabase X4 dock ($320). Both the Portégé M400-S4032 (4.7 lbs) and the LifeBook T4210 (4.8 lbs) have built-in optical drives at about the same weight, but you sacrifice the battery life. Hard-drive options go up to 100GB (spinning at 7,200 rpm) for my review unit. There's also a 120GB (5,400 rpm) option at no additional charge. The fingerprint reader sits adjacent to the screen. A screen orientation button (which allows you to switch the screen's orientation, independent of the accelerometer) and navigation dial (which moves the cursor) are also available in tablet mode.

Performance enhancements are the highlight of the X60 tablet. The system moves to an Intel Core Duo L2400 (1.66GHz) from a Pentium M processor. It's a low-voltage chip, which means it runs a bit slower than the standard voltage Core Duos found on the Toshiba and Fujitsu units. The X60 Tablet does get a little warmas the Fujitsu doesbut not uncomfortably so. With a faster processor and 1GB of RAM, Photoshop scripts and video encoding tests improved 30 percent and 20percent, respectively, over the previous X41 Tablet. (SYSmark 2004 SE and our battery benchmark tests could not run because of incompatibilities with the operating system.) Since both the ThinkPad X60 and the X60 Tablet are engineered with the same design, battery life should get within the 7-hour range. Lenovo is claiming 7.5 hours.

With the release of Windows Vista RTM (Build 6000), I had the wonderful opportunity to upgrade the X60 Tablet to Windows Vista. The tablet version will work in three of the seven Vista flavors: Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. Overall, the upgrade experience ended on a positive note. The 3D Aero interface ran smoothly, and you'll find significant improvements in the writing experience. Most of the components in device manager upgraded successfully, except for the Sierra EV-DO wireless card. The application keys on the screen didn't work either, but Lenovo should have working drivers for these devices by the time Windows Vista hits store shelves.

Whether you're in a business or a classroom environment, the Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet now has the goods to be your tablet of choice. It gets a healthy dose of upgrades, including a dual-core processor and integrated EV-DO, and you get a host of new features (from the digitizer pen to the new screen options) to complement performance.

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